Abortion Rights, Labor and the Left

[Modern School]

The San Francisco Chronicle printed a cartoon in the opinion page on July 18 showing teachers, social workers and public sector workers under attack, with the caption “Attacking public sector workers is attacking women.” I mentioned it to my wife and asked her where the feminists were? She said they were probably overwhelmed fighting for reproductive rights.

While the fight for women’s reproductive and health rights is important, I would argue that it is one of many struggles that would benefit from greater worker power. Do we simply want women to have the right and access to an unpleasant medical procedure or to have improved overall social and economic status, wellbeing and health? There are certainly times when an abortion is necessary for the health or survival of the mother. There are also times when it is an economic necessity. However, the vast majority of abortions and unintended pregnancies occur among lower income women. This is due to a number of factors, including worse overall health and nutrition, which increase the chances of a medically necessary abortion, while poverty decreases access to perinatal care and contraceptives. Also, while affluent women have far fewer unintended pregnancies, they are much more likely to be able to provide materially for their children, decreasing the need for abortion.

Therefore, by elevating women’s economic power, we would significantly increase their health and material security, thus reducing the need for abortions in the first place. This ought to be the goal for many additional reasons, too. By increasing women’s economic status, we necessarily improve the health and educational outcomes for their children, who will be more likely to be born at a healthy weight and time, receive adequate nutrition and healthcare, and avoid much of the familial stress that accompanies financial insecurity. Each of these would decrease the number of children with cognitive impairments and learning disabilities. However, in order to improve women’s economic status, we need a strong labor movement that has the power to demand higher wages, better health care, and safer working conditions for all workers.

There is another reason why workers’ power should be at the very top of the progressive agenda. Workers have the most powerful weapon available for achieving most progressive goals—the strike. Petitions, demonstrations, letter-writing sometimes have a little influence on a few policy-makers, but they do not put any real pressure on them. The one thing that does pressure the ruling class is a threat to their profits, a threat that can most effectively be carried out when workers refuse to work or engage in other forms of direct action that slow down production. Therefore, a strong and militant labor movement is necessary for the rest of the left to achieve its goals, including the protection of women’s reproductive and health rights. In a July 18 interview on KPFA’s “Letters From Washington,”

Ralph Nadar said that Obama doesn’t have to listen to progressives because they have no bargaining power. In other words, he doesn’t need their votes (or, expects he’ll get their votes anyway) and they are too weak to gum up the cogs of capitalism, thus posing no threat to his ability to raise funds or maintain his current support. The left can whine and complain about his appointment to the consumer protection agency, war mongering, capitulations to Wall Street, and abandonment of the poor and working class, but what are they really do about it?

Returning to the cartoon in the Chronicle it, is important to recognize that an attack on public sector workers is not just an attack on women. It is an attack on all of us, as it lowers overall wages and material security and decreases the quality and availability of public services upon which we all depend. Similarly, any attack on women’s reproductive rights is also an attack on all of us as it weakens women’s status in society, decreases their social and physical independence, and helps to perpetuate poverty, each of which has social costs for everyone. When women are devalued in society, when anyone is devalued or has lesser rights or protections, it increases the vulnerability of each of us.

The basis of solidarity is the recognition that we are all in it together, that an injury to one is an injury to all. Not one of us can truly be free if any one of us is economically or socially deprived. When workers start to live by this truth, instead of pitting themselves against other workers, they will unite to fight for the wellbeing of all workers, not just to obtain better working conditions and wages, but for all the good things in life, including adequate healthcare and nutrition, a clean environment, control over their working conditions and an end to the wage system itself.

Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/07/abortion-rights-labor-and-left.html